Setting spring severe aside when looking for summer tstorms would you look more toward MLCAPE vs SB? I've noticed many times in the summer when we get capped our SB will be in the 2000+ range but ml is much less and we have a ton of flat cumulus
I think I would look more at SBcape, but Im embarressed to say I only look at soundings when there is severe weather possible. Its like when my wife asks me what the weather will be this week when I havent looked at it because Im focused on something a week away. She always gets me with the comment that I should know because im watching the weather enough.
Here’s the best I can give, perfect setup with a really powerful negativily tilted trough, lots of sfc moisture, then Capping developed after morning MCS came through which allowed good CAPE (3000+) which argues for extreme updraft development once it broke, also had a EML present, had a strong low pressure system in a good place for severe wx (Kentucky), steep lapses, high Equilibrium layer, ageostrophic flow which would end up aided in extremely violent rotating storms and extreme helicity, supercells found this environment and flourished, they had the environment to there self, combination of extreme CAPE and helicity is extremely dangerous, I think what didn’t help was the fact that the morning storms gave some people a mindset that it was over or it wouldn’t be bad later, as you said tho boundaries had a significant effect, there so underrated in outbreaks, they can aid in some of the most violent tornadoes
, im guessing we got lucky then last storm system that the low wasn't closer too us. More shear and a stronger LLJ would've aided in more instability. Provided the discreet mode of the supercells.
The veterans day 2002 tornado outbreak was the closest analog event for that day which is intresting because it produced long track but less intensity tornado tracks on a Fall day.
In addition to what Fro said, the day had perfect conditions for discrete supercells. The trough was negatively tilted, but it was broad based and allowed the forcing to be more spread out and allowed the upper level shear to hit the boundary at a sharp angle as you can see by the westerly winds at 500mb.
Perfect hail sounding, note such large CAPE in the hail growth zone (-10c to -30), dry air aloft and this sounding pretty much explains the rest, shear can help out by sustaining hail in a updraft allowing the hail to grow in size, ima just put this here since this is the learning thread and this thread is not used much, lol, a mod can delete the one I put in the March thread
To add to this, my rule if thumb for large hail to to see where the wetbulb zero height is. When I see that WBZ at or below 700mb along with strong instability,lapse rates and strongly negative LI, and decent bulk shear; large hail is very favored.
So, when the column of air is saturated with precip (reaching 100% relative humidity) the temperature can theoretically cool to reach the Dew Point. That is called Wet-bulbing. The colder the dewpoints the colder the surface temperatures will end up being, even though they will both rise at the onset of the storm.
Not exactly correct. The surface temp does not rise at the onset... it falls. The wet-bulb is calculated roughly by taking the difference between the air temp and the dew point. Dividing that result by 3 and subtracting that from the air temp. This will give you a good idea of the potential cooling effect that the precipitation will cause and the temperature of a saturated atmosphere.
That wasn’t necessary what I meant, I shouldn’t have said onset, yes the surface temperature cool to the wetbulb (I appreciate the formula), but I was referring to the gradual rise in temperature during this storm due to WAA.
Also, what’s that first map? CAPE? What is that?
It’s convective available potential energy, or basically thunderstorm fuel/instability
Thank you!